Pati Sanghamitra, Sharma Anjali, Pati Sandipana, Zodpey Sanjay
Indian Institute of Public Health Bhubaneswar, Public Health Foundation of India, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.
Public Health Foundation of India, Gurgaon, Haryana, India.
J Family Med Prim Care. 2015 Oct-Dec;4(4):495-500. doi: 10.4103/2249-4863.174264.
In the recent years, there has been renewed interest in strengthening primary care for improved health services delivery. Family medicine with its holistic principles is an effective approach for building primary care workforce in resource constraint settings. Even though this discipline is well established and mainstreamed in Western countries, the same is yet to occur in low- and middle-income nations. India with its paradigm shift for universal health coverage is strategically poised to embrace family medicine as a core component of its health system. However, till date, a clear picture of family medicine teaching across the country is yet to be available.
This paper makes an attempt to assess the landscape of family medicine teaching in India with an aim to contribute to a framework for bolstering its teaching and practice in coming years. The objective was to obtain relevant information through a detailed scan of the health professional curricula as well as mapping independent academic programs. Specific areas of interest included course content, structure, eligibility criteria, and accreditation.
Our findings indicate that teaching of family medicine is still in infancy in India and yet to be mainstreamed in health professional education. There are variations in family medicine teaching across academic programs.
It is suggested that both medical and nursing colleges should develop dedicated Departments of Family Medicine for both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. Further, more number of standalone diploma courses adopting blended learning methods should be made available for in-service practitioners.
近年来，人们对加强初级保健以改善卫生服务提供重新产生了兴趣。以其整体原则为基础的家庭医学是在资源有限的环境中建设初级保健劳动力的有效途径。尽管这一学科在西方国家已得到充分确立并成为主流，但在低收入和中等收入国家尚未出现这种情况。印度正经历向全民健康覆盖的范式转变，在战略上准备将家庭医学作为其卫生系统的核心组成部分。然而，迄今为止，全国范围内家庭医学教学的清晰情况仍未可知。
本文试图评估印度家庭医学教学的现状，旨在为未来几年加强其教学和实践的框架做出贡献。目标是通过详细审视卫生专业课程以及绘制独立学术项目来获取相关信息。具体关注领域包括课程内容、结构、入学标准和认证。
我们的研究结果表明，印度的家庭医学教学仍处于起步阶段，尚未在卫生专业教育中成为主流。各学术项目的家庭医学教学存在差异。
建议医学院校和护理学院都应设立专门的家庭医学系，用于本科和研究生教学。此外，应为在职从业者提供更多采用混合学习方法的独立文凭课程。
